Basilica and Shrine of Our Lady of Perpetual Help
- Architect
- Schickel & Ditmars
- Year
- 1878
- Style
- Romanesque Revival
- City
- Boston, MA
Known locally as the Mission Church, the Basilica and Shrine of Our Lady of Perpetual Help has been run by Redemptorist priests since the parish opened in 1870, after Father James Augustine Healy's successful 1869 parish mission convinced Archbishop John J. Williams to invite the order to Boston. Pope Pius XII elevated the shrine to Minor Basilica status by pontifical decree on September 8, 1954.
the building
Parker Hill site. The Redemptorists acquired their site in September 1869 on Parker Hill in Roxbury, then known as the Boston Highlands, land named for the wealthy Boston merchant John Parker.
the style
The basilica was built in the Romanesque Revival style to a design by the firm Schickel & Ditmars, completed in 1878, giving the shrine its round-arched, masonry-heavy presence on Mission Hill.
More on Romanesque Revivalsignificance
The building is a National Register of Historic Places contributing property, and since 1954 it has held the rank of Minor Basilica, one of only a handful of churches in the region so designated by the Vatican.
nearby
- Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum
- Annunciation Greek Orthodox Cathedral of New England
- Alvah Kittredge House
- Museum of Fine Arts Boston
- Goldsmith Block
- Landmark Center